Our volunteers
are recreational scuba divers who monitor the health of reefs around Australia
and the Indo-Pacific.

Reef Check Australia partners with leading marine research organisations,
tourism companies and dive operations, universities, government, local
and international volunteers and a variety of other businesses and organisations.

Our globally-accredited training program provides our volunteers with
the tools to gather high quality data that are useful to coral reef managers.

Monitoring the reef,
Magnetic Island, Townsville

We aim to educate the public about the value of coral reefs and the crisis
facing the world’s reefs. The information we collect is used by
community groups, governments, universities and businesses to design and
implement ecologically sound and economically sustainable coral reef management.

This project was established during 2005 to increase the number of inshore
sites monitored by Reef Check volunteers in the Townsville region. While
inshore reefs are less often frequented by recreational divers, those off
Townsville have some of the greatest biodiversity of hard coral on the Great
Barrier Reef.

Due to their close proximity to the shore, inshore reefs are particularly
susceptible to the effects of human activities, both marine and land based.
Increased sedimentation from dredging or construction activities and nutrient
pollution from land-based activities are among the threats facing inshore
reefs.

Reef Check Australia has formed a partnership with Creek
to Coral, a combined Townsville and State Government initiative
to maintain and enhance our healthy waterways in the coastal dry tropics.
Reef Check volunteers from the Townsville region will be conducting surveys
of a number of sites around Magnetic Island during 2005.